I’ve never heard of a Randian who wanted to stabilize government spending at 19% of GDP for the next 30 years as Ryan’s current plan does. Nor do I think increasing total Medicare spending every year and preserving Medicare completely intact for everyone over 55 constitutes an attack on an already “minimalist” welfare state.

In every speech, talk, or interview I’ve heard him give, Paul Ryan has not come across as a libertarian crusader out to repeal every social program passed in the last 100 years. Rather, he soberly and consistently makes the case that our entitlement programs are unsustainable in their current form and that we have to trim them back to preserve them for future generations.

Maybe Ryan’s current plan is indeed “not really what he really wants to do.” Maybe he wants to eliminate the welfare state instead of bringing it back into balance with the rest of society. No politician, President Obama especially (public option, anyone?), gets to do what they really want to or say exactly why they want to do it, though.

Whatever his true beliefs, Ryan has put together a substantial but achievable reform plan for our nation’s entitlement system and framed it in a way that makes sense to everyone who actually hears him speak. The “image issues” that Ryan faces are not the result of his own actions or words but of his opponents’ relentless and often hysterical attempts to smear him as a slash-and-burn anti-government radical.

The real Paul Ryan is a good man and a good Catholic whom I would trust to help run our country. If the voters reject the Romney ticket because of him (which they very well might, I admit), it will be because the other side successfully slandered him, not because he really is too radical to be vice president.

No it wouldn’t. the Medicare “tax payments” come from younger workers who are paying into the system. Seniors who choose FFS Medicare get the same premium support as seniors who choose another option that provides the exact same services. If another option provided the eaxt same services at a lower price, then presumably more seniors would pick the cheaper option for the same service. In places where Medicare FFS was the best option (and those places would likely exist) seniors would choose that option. I don’t see how more seniors getting equal or better health care at a lower cost to the government “kills” Medicare if we think of Medicare as a health insurance program. If we are just interested in giving old people the fewest options at the highest price, then let’s just count on centralized spending cuts to do the job.

I don’t know what you are worried about. In another thread you argued that Medicare would likely be the lowest and most efficient bidder. It is possible you are right. In that case (the worst case scenario), we are exactly where we are if we adopt Obama’s plan. And like I told you, there is good reason to think we will get better results from competitive bidding than the Obama-like worst case scenario.

http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/313243/new-estimate-potential-impact-competitive-bidding-medicare-expenditures-reihan-salam

Medicare spending under the most recent Ryan budget grows at precisely the same rate as under President Obama’s. Under the plan, older, sicker seniors would receive higher premium support and plans that disproportionately enrolled healthier Medicare recipients would pay a fee, while those that enrolled more high risk recipients would receive an incentive payment.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/294039/itimesi-and-ryan-budget-yuval-levin

Go with the anti-gravity supernova idea.